The Portland Police Bureau just reported a fatal collision involving a man riding a bicycle and someone driving a car.

The collision occurred at SE 148th and Mill in the Centennial Neighborhood around 9:00 pm tonight (9/30). The intersection is slated for a traffic signal as per plans by the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) to create a neighborhood greenway on SE Mill. Currently it’s slated for completion in 2015.

No additional details are available right now; but the PPB has launched an investigation and I’ll update this post as I learn more. If you saw anything or have information to share, please call the Portland Police non-emergency line at (503) 823-3333.

UPDATE, 11:30 am 10/2: The PPB still hasn’t released many more details. Below is what I have just heard from Traffic Division Capt. David Hendrie:

“We had five major crash team callouts in 48 hours over the weekend so it has been hectic… the rider was riding on the sidewalk and rode in front of the car that was turning left onto Mill. The investigator is still reviewing the evidence from the crash. The driver of the vehicle was not impaired and there is no indication she could have avoided the collision. It will be some time before we know more.”

This intersection is along one of the proposed east-west Neighborhood Greenways in east Portland. The project is funded (I think), and slated from completion in 2015 … maybe we can bump that schedule up a couple years?

Diamonds might sometimes be put in bike lanes. The diamond simply means it’s a special use lane and that it is restricted to certain users instead of all users. In the case of a bike lane, bikes only; in the case of a HOV lane, motorcycles, buses and HOV-vehicles.

Thanks, John and Scott. I don’t recall seeing bike lanes marked by diamonds in WA but maybe I just failed to notice. I’m surprised they have not worn away more than they have in those views; “bike lane” marks painted around my neighborhood are mostly gone after two years or so. I wonder when they were painted?

I really feel for anybody that has to rely on biking to get back an forth out in the east part of the city. There are some insanely dangerous drivers out there, aside from the increased prevalence of people who are hateful and overtly violent towards anybody on a bike.

Combine this with having to get around amongst all this after the sun goes down, when visibility is lowered and the chances of DUII goes way up, and you got a bad bad recipe for bike riding.

This intersection is within a block of my house. I ride through it every day I go to work. It is way better now than what it used to be since they installed the countdown crosswalk signals a couple of years ago. But still I see people blast through without stopping for a red light – both motor vehicles and bikes. The light used to take forever + (another long time) + (an eon or an era) to change if you were on Mill, but now it works well for both streets. The major problem, from my observation, is speed. 35 mph on 148th and 25 on Mill, neither of which is normally observed and Mill is supposedly a “Bike Route”. There have been a number of accidents at this intersection over the years including multiple fatalities.
I nearly ran over a young kid on a bike at this intersection about two weeks ago as I was taking my dog to the vet in my pickup, when the light turned green I hesitated then started to move forward when this kid, about 8 or 9, flashed into my right periphery vision and across in front of my truck. He was riding on the sidewalk when he crossed in front of me. Luckily my foot was still on the brake and I stopped in the nick of time. It took a moment to process it all before I could go on. I still shudder when I think of it.

The PPB says they’ve been swamped with several major crashes in the past two days. Here’s what I just heard from them:

“We had five major crash team callouts in 48 hours over the weekend so it has been hectic… the rider was riding on the sidewalk and rode in front of the car that was turning left onto Mill. The investigator is still reviewing the evidence from the crash. The driver of the vehicle was not impaired and there is no indication she could have avoided the collision. It will be some time before we know more.”